Until
Later, I marvelled
at where I’d been until that moment
I looked out the window and saw you
watching me from across the pebbled yard,
the cicadas thrumming my heart
like a violin, the shimmering heat
miraging the fields of yellow wheat,
and beneath us all, the steady pulse
of our earth revolving, growing,
burning. The school bus pulled away;
and still you stayed. I was thirteen; nothing
happened, everything happened—
nothing went wrong.
Denise O’Hagan is a Sydney-based editor and poet. Recipient of the Dalkey Poetry Prize, her work is published internationally. Her poetry collection Anamnesis (Recent Work Press) was finalist in the Eric Hoffer Book Award and shortlisted in the Rubery Book Award (2023). denise-ohagan.com